TRP: Hansel and Roddy (Lineage)
Day 272, the inn at Gentleglen After a bit of hugging, Goro slunk off to go clean up-- he stunk for some reason so that was a good idea, in Roddy's book. And this left Roddy with Dad! This was a good deal. Cat-Dad was tiny and cute and precious but there really was no substitute for Dad-Dad. "Missed you," he said happily, still hugging Hansel. "I told Luci! I don't think she was all that impressed though. Hey can you go cat again? I wanna drop you in her lap. Then she'll see." IZZY Hansel snorted, patting the kid's shell. Yeah, sounded like Luci. "Uh, not today, I don't think. That fuckin' ... limited magic thing, and all. Tomorrow, though." He'd seen Luci pet animals. Was mostly people she didn't like. "We'll fuckin' show her, eh?" ABBY "Yeah!" Roddy grinned. Bummer, about the magic, but Dad hadn't a spellcaster for too long, it wasn't entirely surprising he couldn't do a lot. "You'll get more when you exercise it and stuff," he said, patting Hansel's back. "I got a whole lot of magic now cause I've been using it a bunch!" IZZY God, that was adorable. Kid trying to reassure him and shit. Hansel couldn't help grinning a little. Made sense, put that way, too -- had to exercise to be able to fight, too. "Yeah, well. Never gonna be as good as you 'n Luci, but I'll see what I can do. Hey, uh." He glanced in his room. With Mishka watching the Novads and Goro off to get cleaned up, it was empty. Private. "You in the middle of anything, kid?" ABBY "Hugging you." IZZY He snorted. "True. That's fuckin' true. Y'make a good point." ABBY Roddy snickered. "So as you see my hands are very full," he said, and squeezed for emphasis. IZZY Shame the kid wasn't smaller, or Hansel could just solve the problem of his hands being full by hoisting him up and walking off with him. Had to be just about the only person Hansel couldn't do that to, though. Kid weighed a fuckin' ton. Made him think, though. "Hey. Shame you can't turn into like ... a little turtle. That polymorph thing gives you the brain of an animal, too, right? Wasn't like that when I was a cat. But if you were a tiny fuckin' turtle I could just carry you around like everyone else. Nice." ABBY Roddy squinted for a second. "Well if I could turn into a little turtle I could also just turn into a cat too. Or... some other animal maybe." He hugged a little harder. "Turtles aren't cuddly," he muttered. IZZY "Hm. Hard fuckin' disagree on that one, motek. Doin' it right now." He squeezed the kid. "S'a good time. Fuckin' ten outta ten cuddle experience." ABBY Roddy grinned a little. Okay that was nice, but still. "I'm a tortle," Roddy reminded him. "It's different." IZZY Hansel tapped a fist on the metal shield on his back, making a thunking sound. "Eh, ain't that different." He needed to focus, though. He patted the kid's shell again and directed him towards his room. "Hey, c'mere. I need to, uh. Talk t'you about somethin'." ABBY Big difference in tortles and turtles. Roddy could talk for one thing. He set that aside though, because Dad wanted to talk and it wasn't that big a deal anyway. "What about?" he asked, going along. Had Roddy done something? He couldn't think of anything Dad'd want to talk to him about though. And he didn't seem mad or anything. Maybe it was about the Novads? Mishka had said they weren't family family. IZZY He worried his knuckles together. All right. This'd be real simple to explain to Jonn and Luci, 'cause they were both fuckin' peculiar, and he had a lot of experience with telling them shit in ways they'd understand in their specific peculiar ways. He loved Roddy to death, he just didn't have as much of a backlog with doing shit the wrong way, with him, and learning from it. Roddy was more ... normal, frankly. "Not a big deal," he started, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Not anything ... eh." He was gonna say it's not anything bad, but it fuckin' was bad. "Not anything you did, I oughta say. It's, uh. Kind of a fuckin' bummer, is all. About, y'know." He tilted his head like he was indicating them. "My ... dad's family. The orcs." ABBY Ah. Yeah, Roddy'd had it right then. The second time. He settled next to Hansel, close enough their shoulders were brushing. "The ones Mishka said weren't real family." IZZY "Yeah." He nodded, head turned a bit but more looking at the floor than at Roddy. "Yeah. I just didn't want, uh. Y'know. If you hear some shit, bein' around them -- I'd rather you hear it from me, first, s'pose. 'Cause," he added quickly, "thing is, they're not gonna be family, but they're still good people, and uh. Still wanna keep an eye out for'em, while we're here." ABBY Roddy fidgeted a bit. He wasn't sure what, exactly, was going on here but-- Dad was gonna explain. He didn't say anything, just watched Hansel, waiting for him to say his peace. IZZY He cleared his throat. Right. Right. Fuckin' ... responsibility time. "So, thing is, uh. Y'know, my dad -- Yehuda. He was the, uh." God. Okay. Say more words in a row. "The leader of the caravan, Naomi -- he was her son. They were in Shepherd Hills to trade, and Yehuda and my mom hit it off, but uh -- thing is that people around there, and around here, they don't much fuckin' care for orcs. Elves and such, either." He wasn't sure if Roddy had noticed or not. He'd avoided going into town with them while Roddy and the rest had been staying at the Granger farm, and the usual reaction to a six-foot turtle was confusion -- people might not like it particularly but they didn't generally fuckin' know how to be racist to a tortle 'cause they didn't know what the fuck he was. "Better now that it used to be," he admitted, drumming his fingers against his knee. "Uh. It was ... real fuckin' bad, then. And when folks found out that they were, uh. Y'know. Together. They took it out on Yehuda for ..." He grimaced. "Leading a good honest human girl astray, or whatever-the-fuck. And -- they hanged him. Killed him for it." He got through the rest quickly. "So, Naomi -- y'know, her kid got killed, which is -- just about the worst goddamn thing that can happen to a person, and she don't ... particularly care for me because of it. Ain't that she's a bad person, just that ... it's hard for her t'look at me and think about all that. I don't want you to think badly of her, or anything, is all." ABBY They took it out on Yehuda. Killed him for it. She don't particularly care for me. Don't want you to think badly of her. Every time Roddy learned about Dad's past-- it seemed to put a sick feeling in his gut. First what happened to his old crew and now... Roddy twisted around so he could squeeze Hansel into a hug again. "M'sorry," he muttered quietly, trying not to cry. "S'just. Awful. Love you." IZZY Felt better to have it off his chest. Kind of a fucking relief, honestly. He hugged the kid back, letting out a sigh. "Yeah," he said quietly. "S'pretty fuckin' awful, yeah. Love you too, kid. Sorry y'don't, y'know, get more family out of it." ABBY "S'okay," Roddy said. "Would have been nice but. I got a good family right now." One full of hurt people and sharp edges. Good thing Roddy had a shell. IZZY He smiled a bit. "Yeah. True. Fuckin' reasonable as always, motek." ABBY Roddy grinned a little. Always nice, hearing that. "And I'll help protect them too, anyway," he said. "Cause you asked." IZZY "Good." He patted Roddy's shell and pulled back, still grinning a bit weakly. "Gotta have my best people on it, y'know." ABBY Best people. Yeah Roddy didn't need the Novads, he had Hansel. "And we got you too, you know that right? Me, and Mishka, and Goro, Jonn, Luci, and- and everybody else. You got family too." IZZY He laughed softly. "Yeah, I know. Fuckin' swimming in family, honestly. Don't even know what to do with all of you." Just when exactly that'd happened he wasn't even goddamn sure, but it was the truth. He spun the bead on his wrist. "Sent at Mom and Leigh, by the way. They're all good. On their way here. We might catch'em before we leave for Calimport t'get Amari -- dunno yet." ABBY "Oh that's good! I miss them. Hey do you think they'll come back to the castle now that everything's all wrecked around here?" IZZY "Ah. Dunno, kid." He grimaced. "We'll have t'see if the farm's ... y'know, salvageable, s'pose. We'll talk more when we see'em. We have got that good farmland at the castle." He shrugged. "I'd like for'em to. Maybe we can talk'em into it, now." ABBY "And there's a barn if they wanna bring the goats," Roddy said, mostly to himself. He liked the goats. They tried to climb on him if he crouched down but that was kinda funny. He just needed to make sure he got cleaned up afterwards. IZZY "If the Lady of the Woods lets'em bring the goats back," Hansel commented, amused. He knew they'd taken the livestock with them to her tree. "Gotta get my goddamn cat back from that woman. Maybe I'll take you to visit, if you want." ABBY "Yeah! I'm very persuasive, I can help with talking her into giving up the goats if she don't wanna give 'em up," Roddy chattered happily. "And the cat too. I didn't know you had a cat." IZZY "Uhh, you can ... sure try, kid." Shit, if anyone could find the Lady's good side, it was Roddy. ABBY "Is she... cranky or something?" Roddy asked, frowning slightly. IZZY "Somethin' like that. I mean, uh. She's good people. Helps folks out and shit. Prickly as all hell, though," he admitted. ABBY "Oh well. I have prickly friends!" Like Finch. If looks could kill... "They just take a little bit of a different touch. More respectful of boundaries and stuff." IZZY He snorted. "You ain't wrong. Pretty sure the Lady's boundaries are somewhere out past the mountains, though." ABBY "Oh. Well, I guess I'll just have to find out then, huh?" IZZY He gave the kid a fond grin. "Yeah, who knows. Maybe she really likes music. She's older'n the fuckin' hills, but I dunno if she's ever seen a tortle, either." ABBY "Morgan says they... we come from the Moorland area. I haven't seen that many wandering around outside it either. Wouldn't be surprised, I don't think, if she hadn't seen one before." IZZY "Huh. Well, maybe she'll like the uh, fuckin' novelty of somethin' new, or whatever." He shrugged. "She's out there by herself all the time. Maybe she'd like hearin', y'know, stories and ballads and stuff, actually." He'd never thought about that before. ABBY "I can do that. I know a lotta those!" Circus's job was to entertain. And Roddy in particular always liked picking up new stories to entertain with. "You know one time, I learned this myth, and Moria let me train people in acting it out? I kinda... mangled it. But it was a good act!" IZZY "Oh, yeah?" God, that was adorable. Fuckin' ... directing plays and shit. He bumped his shoulder into Roddy's. "We oughta do that, once we get some down time. I'd fuckin' love to watch you put on a play, kid. Bet Jonn'd be into it." Luci, nah. ABBY Roddy lit up, and grabbed Hansel's arm. "You mean that?" That had been one of the best things that had happened in the circus. And getting to do it again with his family. "I wanna do that!" IZZY Hansel laughed. "Yeah, for fuckin' sure. I'll make it happen." It'd been a while since he'd seen Roddy get that excited over something. The idea of him being that happy for the amount of time it'd take to put together a play -- yeah, Hansel'd kill people to make it happen, now. ABBY "Maybe we could put it on for the Lady. Maybe she'd like that too. This is gonna be so fun!" IZZY He had a hard actually imagining the Lady enjoying a play, but maybe that was just 'cause he had a hard time imagining her enjoying anything. "We'll give it a shot," he promised. "Bet she'll be a tough crowd, but you got it." ABBY Roddy nodded, mind already whirling off making plans for the play. First he'd have to figure out which one-- maybe one with a really dramatic villain, that seemed like something Mishka'd have fun with. "And it'll be fun, either way," he said. "I wonder if Grandma and Uncle Leigh would be interested in being in it too." IZZY "Uh, maybe." Hansel was starting to wonder what he might've gotten his entire family into. Would be worth it, though. "I think me an' Leigh got the same actin' skills, though, which is fuckin' none." ABBY "Hmm," Roddy studied Hansel for a second. Maybe he was just underestimating himself. "We'll see," he said, patting Hansel on the shoulder. "I'll get a script and have you read some off, see how well you do there." IZZY Hansel wasn't sure when he'd gone from wanting to watch a play to being in it, but wasn't like he could say no. "Uh." he said instead. "Yeah, all right." ABBY Roddy grinned and hugged Hansel again. "This is gonna be so much fun," he said happily. Who cared about the Novads, Roddy had the Bells and they were so much better. Category:Text Roleplay